


Fanged

by tnico



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Even Younger Lambert, Gen, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Communicating, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lambert-centric, Young Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, a meditation on how an institution that regularly murdered children would handle abuse, a whole lot of Men Not Talking, all the general warnings you'd expect from witchers as kids, does that count as its own character, my conclusion: not well, the soup-thick aura of emotional repression hanging around kaer morhen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:54:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23384089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnico/pseuds/tnico
Summary: Of all the people to break the silence and actually try to talk about it, Lambert was not expecting Geralt. Lambert would have put Geralt at the very end of the list, if he'd actually thought anyone would do it at all. He'd put (the-probably-dead-by-now-so-ghost-of) his ownmotherhigher on that list than he'd have put Geralt. Geralt is so many things, or so say the instructors that never shut up about him, but no one would call him a talker.Apparently, the reason he doesn't is because he's shit at it. His attempt with Lambert starts as painfully awkwardly as it seemingly intends to go on. Geralt stands in the doorway for a full two minutes, staring at him and saying nothing. Lambert had silently stared right back, determined to not be the one to break first, but he is eleven-almost-twelve years old and he is gettingbored.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Lambert
Comments: 21
Kudos: 201





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNING SERIOUSLY HEED THIS CONTENT WARNING
> 
> This piece kicks off with an attempted sexual abuse of a child by a teenage OMC! I didn't use the big tags for it because the attempted act itself is in no way the larger point of the story and it's over quickly and hopefully obliquely as I could make it. But it's there, and it's there right at the kick off! Be warned.

Everyone always says kids need to be more careful with themselves. Everyone always says they shouldn't wander out or get themselves alone with strangers or they'll deserve what they get.

Lambert first learns that the bit about strangers is bullshit when he's eleven years old and thinks he's all alone in the armory. He doesn't even hear one of the older boys come up behind him, doesn't even realize what he's trying to do until he pushes Lambert down with a heavy hand on his neck. 

Dubin's passed his first set of trials and he's bigger than Lambert and _so_ much stronger. He says it'll go easier if Lambert just acts like a good boy. But Lambert's been sure of all of two things in his entire life, and they go like this: he is always going to be a terrible boy, and however mean you think you are, Lambert can be meaner.

It doesn't take long for the instructors to find them, once the screaming starts. They pull Lambert snarling and bloody-faced off the struggling teenager with a sizable chunk of Dubin's left ear still caught between his teeth.

* * *

He doesn't have to explain anything to anyone, in the end. Lambert was supposed to be in the armory. Dubin was not. And there's only so many conclusions for the instructors to make, with the thin, bleeding gouges from Lambert's nails raking down Dubin's hips and the oozing bite-mark healing fast-but-not-fast-enough on his dick.

He doesn't have to say anything to the other boys, either. It's not like any of the instructors have ever held back when it comes to punishing Lambert; the only reason he was down in the armory in the first place was to polish all the fittings on the riding tack as punishment for the day's worth of mouthing off. That Lambert hurt another boy that bad and is still trotting around and mouthing off (like usual) and being given nothing more than an extra round of chores for it (like usual) the next day doesn't escape anyone's painstakingly-trained-in notice. Dubin being taken from the bunks and moved to his own tiny room that locked from the outside wasn't missed, either. Like with the instructors, there's only so many conclusions to make.

Dubin's healed-over cartilage gives him a permanently lop-sided look. Lambert always bares his teeth at him whenever they cross paths, but it's mostly wasted effort; Dubin's never met his eyes since then.

So no one says, and everyone knows, and if Dubin weren't for sure a dead man walking he sure as shit is now. Lambert notices things. He sees the careful, distant way the older boys look at Dubin, like he might as well be a ghost already. Even if he survives the Trial proper, there's no way the goodie two-shoes' who pass with him like Geralt who think like they're _heroes_ or something will let him live the night. No one says it and everyone knows it. 

If Lambert had to name one thing he actually likes about this place, it's that. They're all so very good at not talking about things, out here in Kaer Morhen.

* * *

Of all the people to break the silence and actually try to talk about it, Lambert was _not_ expecting Geralt. Lambert would have put Geralt at the very end of the list, if he'd actually thought anyone would do it at all. He'd put (the-probably-dead-by-now-so-ghost-of) his own _mother_ higher on that list than he'd have put Geralt. Geralt is so many things, or so say the instructors that never shut up about him, but no one would call him a talker.

Apparently, the reason he doesn't is because he's shit at it. His attempt with Lambert starts as painfully awkwardly as it seemingly intends to go on. Geralt stands in the doorway for a full two minutes, staring at him and saying nothing. Lambert had silently stared right back, determined to not be the one to break first, but he is eleven-almost-twelve years old and he is getting _bored_.

"What!" Lambert finally snaps, peevish.

Geralt clears his throat before he speaks. "You're the smallest of the group."

"Holy shit! _Really?_ "

Lambert looks down his body like he's seeing it for the first time, fake bewilderment coloring his voice before he kills the whole act like a pinched wick. "I know that already, asshole. So what? If I don't _die on a table_ I'm gonna catch up."

Usually, that's another one of those things they don't talk about, but he knows how much Geralt doesn't like hearing him say it and _fuck Geralt_ , Lambert is _still growing._

It's another interminable moment of silent staring before Geralt speaks again, expression pulled too tight. "No, I mean- that's why. I heard Dubin talking to- before. It wasn't because of anything you said or how you... acted. It was because you're the smallest. He didn't say he'd- with a kid, but he said if he was going to- it'd be easier to..." Geralt keeps stumbling over the words, looking even more physically pained by the act of attempting complete sentences than usual.

Lambert can feel himself settling into the worn-down comfort of further peevishness. "Why are you telling me this? That supposed to make me feel _better_ , Geralt?"

"Feel how you want to feel. But you should have the whole story before you-"

Lambert cuts him off with a groan and tossed-back eyes before Geralt (as Geralt does) parrots yet another slavishly-memorized maxim from Vesemir about the importance of investigation before decision. Talker he is not, but by the Gods, Lambert would put an entire week of chore roster on Geralt being nonetheless the most obnoxious teacher's pet in _all of witcher history_. 

Geralt (as Geralt does) furrows his brow and turns down the corners of his mouth in that way of his that means he's displeased or concerned but usually just makes him look like he's legitimately pissed. Lambert's considered telling him it looks like that, because he's not actually sure Geralt's aware he scowls when he's just thinking. But he also can't say it doesn't impress him, how well it works to keep the other boys at a distance. No one'd pick _Geralt_ for the weakest target. Must be nice.

"And I wanted to tell you. I'm sorry," Geralt grinds out, with the clenched-jaw patience of someone determined to force their way through to the conclusion. "I heard it, the- and I thought- I thought it was the usual talk. I was wrong. I should have told the instructors."

Lambert does know the usual talk, is the thing. Geralt's a boy, too. That's what boys are supposed to do. The point of saying shit like they do is usually for other boys to hear it. If Geralt went running to Papa Vesemir over every horrible thing boys said to each other, he'd never have time to catch his breath. Boys always talk a lot of shit, but all it is is talking shit. 

Well, up until it isn't, Lambert reflects, at the remembered taste of iron on his tongue.

(And the thing is: unlike most mean people, Lambert isn't mean because he's stupid. He notices things, about how people act, about how things happen, about how very much the first influences the second. He notices a lot. It's the main reason he's so good at being mean.

Dubin still can't handle signs. The survival rate for a witcher who can't sign is below abysmal, and that's considering the rate even for the ones who can is shit-hole low. Dubin's Trial of the medallion is coming up and everyone knows that like most of the winnowed-down boys who manage to survive the mutations, they never really took to him. Not like they had on Geralt and Eskel, and the gap's only getting bigger as time goes on. He's heading off to a death more likely than any of them, and still he's got to act the bravest about it anyway, because again: he's a boy. That's what boys are supposed do.

And Lambert knows from wickedness. He knows how shitty people get when they feel powerless. How his father would rail against his own weakness for the bottle, the poverty of their living, his mother getting pregnant and tying him to her with a son. He spent all his time raging at feeling so powerless against it all, and made himself feel better about it by being tyrant to those he had any power over. Shit rolls down hill.

But Lambert knows from wickedness. The other boys in Dubin's group are due for their final Trial too, and they're all getting snappier lately, even Eskel, but they never say or try things like _that_. So why should Lambert feel bad at all for hurling that shit right back the way up? He knows Dubin's going to die one way or the other, and he doesn't feel bad about it at all.)

So Lambert does know the usual talk. But fuck Geralt anyway. Lambert never wanted to have this conversation. Lambert was just fine with never talking about it. This whole thing is happening now just so Geralt can make _himself_ feel better about it.

Lambert is suddenly, irrationally, more angry at Geralt for talking to him about it than he has been at anything else since he took that chunk from Dubin's ear. And Lambert learned early on how to take whatever's been thrown at him and throw it right back but meaner.

"So thanks for nothing," he spits, pushing all his anger at Geralt into the thing he's not even angry at Geralt about because he knows that'll make it hurt worse. Geralt can't contain his flinch, because Lambert is _good_ at being mean. Lambert slams the door in his face.

Geralt stays outside the door for a while, but doesn't say anything further. So Lambert sits there and fumes and waits for Geralt to say something until he finally hears the sounds of his footsteps walking away.

It just makes him even angrier. Fuck Geralt anyway. And he'll _never_ tell Geralt what his stupid face really looks like when he's thinking, Lambert resolves, not ever.

* * *

Lambert watches the instructors feed the bodies they could find into the pyre from the windows while he's laid out in bed, recovering from his own survival of his first Trial. It's not even a funeral as much as disposal. Mass graves draw necrophages. He don't even need all the fancy witcher training he's now apparently due to get, barring a relapse (and you can never bar the possibility of relapse, not for months), to know that. Geralt, predictably, returns first, far before everyone else. Dubin, predictably, is among the dead. It's hard to tell which he is, with all the corpses so mangled, but Lambert's (stinging, weird) new eyes can pick out the ear where the mangling already healed over months ago, even this far away. Lambert picks at his bandages and watches Dubin's corpse burn up and marks out where they bury his ashes. 

As soon as he can finally walk again, he hobbles out there one night to the unmarked grave and pisses on it, because he's just turned twelve years old and is going to be a witcher for real now and is still the smallest in his group and has been a terrible boy from the very start and he is always, _always_ angry. He is aware, even at the time, (when he was still a kid and hadn't learned yet how to turn off that fire-blistering rage he has towards so many things in his life so he could actually get through his day-to-day) that it's spectacularly petty.

As with most of the spectacularly petty things he's contemplated doing when he's feeling this angry, he is aware, and still he does it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second part is Geralt POV! and to lighten the angst please consider:
> 
> young!geralt: vesemir says--  
> young!lambert: vEsEmIr sAyS--


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt POV. Nothing is solved and things remain miserable.

It's common knowledge Lambert's difficult. But he's never been for Geralt, really. For a kid, he's generally easy enough to figure out. It's like Vesemir says: sometimes, the answer is the question. Lambert became easy to figure out once Geralt realized that that was it: Lambert acts the way he acts because he has yet to figure himself out.

Well, except for the fact that he's angry. He'd figured that one out well enough before he came here.

(Which is, perhaps, why Geralt finds the way Lambert acts easier to understand, and the true fact that he absolutely can be an intolerable little shit at times easier to handle. Every boy who comes into Kaer Morhen has his own story why, but the stories of the boys who come in here already angry tend to share some common themes.

They've all grown up too fast, they all know about things they shouldn't know about, yet, and they've all learned anger like it's alchemy. And if Lambert's raw talent in weaponizing anger in all its forms into the most deft and damaging concoctions to those around him is a portent for how he'll do on that front, maybe they should start training him on the bombs early.

But it's the other side of how well they've learned anger that gives Geralt that extra edge of patience. Most of the younger boys are in some way scared of him, and it's only gotten even worse since the last round of mutagens turned his hair white and made what made him so different clear for all to see. Lambert, from the start, had never been scared of Geralt at all. He first thought it was fearlessness (though Vesemir calls that a fool's slang for recklessness,) up until the day Lambert finally pushed it too far and Geralt snapped at him and actually meant it.

Lambert had gone abruptly silent, left the room, and Geralt didn't see the slightest hint of him for almost a week. In any other capacity, a disappearing act like that in an enclosed fortress with regularly scheduled training and meals would have been impressive. In this one, Geralt felt almost sick with relief when Lambert finally stopped avoiding being alone in a room with him again.

Lambert tends to misinterpret all sorts of things into their very worst ways, but when it comes to identifying anger in anyone bigger than him, he's unerring. He can pick out the difference between what's bluster and what's rage from a hundred feet off like he's already gone through the mutations for his eyes.

Geralt doesn't (want to, if he's truly honest) know the specifics. He's heard enough of the other boys' stories to already know the themes. It makes it easier to be patient with Lambert.)

* * *

Geralt only talked about it with anyone besides Lambert just the once. It was right after, when all they had were the first round of rumors and the actual details tangled in them. But what they had was enough to know, really. Everyone in the upper group knew the sort of things Dubin liked to say.

Though Geralt hadn't actually talked at all. He and Eskel had just sat on Eskel's bed and said nothing to each other for a very long time.

Finally, Eskel had spoken, firm with his decision. "If the Trial doesn't, we'll take care of it."

All Geralt could do in response is nod, once. But it was enough to get a nod back.

They'd stayed there, shoulder to shoulder, and hadn't said anything else for the rest of the night.

* * *

It's a week later and still no one knows any details of the encounter that led Dubin getting his ear unceremoniously (rightfully) docked. There's been no change in Lambert's mood or behavior at all, as blithely insolent to anyone who gets in his way as he's always been. Geralt wants to believe that's a good thing, but he's got the suspicion it might actually be more worrying.

It's the day after that he wakes up in his own sweat, grasping at the threads of a half-remembered conversation and braying laughter he'd been in the room for. It takes him a while to piece it back together; he'd tried, after all, his best to forget it. And Geralt realizes, as he looks at what he's assembled, that maybe no one knows what really happened in the armory except the two involved, but Geralt probably knows more of the details than most.

More than he has the right to. And he'd known them before anything had even happened. And maybe he could have done- maybe he could have-

He can't think of an end to that sentence. What there was to be done, truly. But he could have _tried_ , and he didn't, because those are the kinds of conversations he's always found easier to forget than to think about.

He knows, at least, that he has to try to apologize to Lambert, even if he very much suspects his attempt will go horribly.

* * *

It goes horribly.

(-And he'd thought the formless acid burn of guilt that'd been laying low in his stomach for a week would be the worst of it. Maybe the ice in his gut that's replaced it is better. But he doubts it; he's already gotten the scars to show it's folly to forget that for all that ice is numbing, it'll burn you up just as bad if you feel it cold enough.)

* * *

The Trial takes care of it.

It's a shitty end to a shitty situation.

Vesemir's probably said something useful about how that's the witcher's lot in life more often than it's not, but as Geralt presses his fingers to the inscriptions on the cool metal of his own hard-won Wolf's medallion for the first time, it doesn't come to mind.

He could start on his Path now, or he could wait a few days and see who ends up surviving the Trial of the Grasses.

He packs his things and leaves that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case it got too angsty for you here's my cliff-notes
> 
> young!geralt: the trick is to bottle up all your emotions.  
> young!lambert: i will do this. i will then use them to make molotov cocktails of emotions so that i may pelt vesemir every winter forever more  
> young!geralt: no not like that

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked my fic, please remember to leave kudos! 
> 
> (｡òᴗ-)7✧ i like seeing who liked my stuff.


End file.
